Tuesday, November 1, 2016

Doctor Strange is magical entertainment: A film review

Doctor Strange is magical entertainment:
A film review

by rick olivares

I somewhat felt some trepidation going
to the theater to watch Doctor Strange considering this is the first Marvel
film without their former creative committee that included Marvel Studios
President Kevin Feige, Marvel Comics publisher Dan Buckley, Chief Creative
Officer Joe Quesada, writer Brian Michael Bendis, and Marvel executive Alan
Fine.

After Marvel’s own “civil war”, Feige
is now at the helm of the film division without input from anyone else. And the
new dawn is evident in the opening where we see a new Marvel Studios film intro
that has none of the trademark comic book panels that created an elegant
pastiche of four colored delight. Instead, we see the characters and actors
from all the Marvel Cinematic Universe.

However, agonize no longer.
Doctor Strange combines the best of “The Matrix”, “Inception”, and one of those
favorite television shows of mine as a kid, “Kung Fu” that starred David Carradine
but this one comes with a healthy dose of the mystic. The result is a trippy,
psychedelic, funny origin film about a most unlikely hero. Yep. Another home
run for Marvel Studios.

The titular character of Doctor
Stephen Strange, played with sumptuous panache by Benedict Cumberbatch, is a
brilliant yet egotistical surgeon who survives a horrific car accident that
effectively ends his career in medicine. Yet, you can’t keep a good doctor
down. When Western medicine fails him, Strange heads east to Nepal where finds
enlightenment as a sorcerer supreme under the tutelage of the Ancient One
(Tilda Swinton) and Karl Mordo (Chiwetel Ejiofor). Strange joins them just in
time to fend off the menace of a former apprentice in Kaecilius (Mads
Mikkelsen) who seeks to bring Earth under the influence of Dormammu and his
Dark Dimension so all may benefit from the “gift” of everlasting life.

More to the surprise is how director
Scott Derrickson who directed one of the most frightening films in “The Exorcism
of Emily Rose” and other horror-fests put this whole thing together that fits
seamlessly in the MCU. He took the mind-bending reality of “The Matrix” and
then “Inception” further into these collapsing blocks that you wonder if all
these buildings will come together to form Constructicon (yes, I know the
Constructicons form Devastator).

He imbued the film with the MCU’s
trademark humor, smart use of pop songs, and nods to its comic book origins
that will make old-time fanboys like me praising the Vishanti.

The humor blindsides you the way Strange’s
Lamborghini Huracan hit some rocks during a sharp turn. From the operating room
scene where Strange taps his foot to Earth, Wind & Fire’s classic “Shining
Star” that segues into Chuck Mangione’s “Feels So Good” to the wifi password “Shamballa”
that given by Mordo to Strange is a delightful nod to that awesome graphic
novel published in 1986 “Doctor Strange: Into Shamballa” that was written by
J.M. DeMatteis and painted work by Dan Green that reminds me of P. Craig Russell’s
work.

I love the way the Cloak of
Levitation is given “life”. Like the wands in Harry Potter, the cloak as do
other mystic avatars in the film choose their master. The cloak’s preventive
instincts lend a humorous touch and is the surprise star of the show (outside
the cast). Move over, Groot. You’ve got company.

Another cool Easter Egg/cameo is
the use of Pink Floyd’s “Interstellar Overdrive” in the film. That is a
wonderful nod to the long relationship between Doctor Strange and those art
rockers. The English band’s 1968 album, “A Saucerful of Secrets” makes use of
artwork from Doctor Strange’s comics (as drawn by the now retired comic book
artist Marie Severin).

The following year, Pink Floyd
recorded a song “Cymbaline” for their album “More”. The songs makes a direct
reference to Doctor Strange:

“The
lines converging where you stand,

They
must have moved the picture plain.

The
leaves are heavy round your feet.

You
hear the thunder of the train.

Suddenly
it strikes you

That
they're moving into range.

And Doctor Strange is always changing size.”

And just this past September,
Cumberbatch joined Pink Floyd’s Dave Gilmour on stage at the Royal Albert Hall
to perform the band’s fave “Comfortably Numb”.

The film borrows a few scenes
from that great Doctor Strange story, 2013’s “The Oath” (written by Brian K.
Vaughn and drawn by the talented Marcos Martin. The astral form of Strange in
the operating room is reprised. Except instead of Night Nurse (who is now Luke
Cage’s love interest), it’s the film’s version of Christine Palmer (played the
pretty Rachel McAdams and is this film’s Pepper Potts) who gets spooked!

The surgeon who operates on
Strange’s mangled hands is none other than Nicodemus West (played by Michael
Stuhlbarg). In “The Oath”, West is not only a rival surgeon but also a sorcerer
who will battle Strange eventually.

There’s a portion where Kaecilius
is after Strange in the New York Sanctum Santorum when the latter reaches out
for a battle axe on the wall. However, the Cloak of Levitation prevents him
from grabbing it and instead seems to point to this harness that will imprison
the dark wizard. The axe is a prominent weapon in the current comic book series
of Jason Aaron and Chris Bachalo. Was this a reference to the split between the
aforementioned creative committee?

One of the film’s strengths is
the strong cast.

Benedict Cumberbatch as Stephen
Strange is like a distant relative of Robert Downey Jr.’s Tony Stark minus the
bizarre sense of humor. There’s a regal bearing to Cumberbatch’s Strange.

Chiwetel Ejiofor is one of the
best in playing tormented characters (alongside James Earl Jones and Idris
Elba) with a level-headedness that belies the sinister streak and capacity for
violence. He first caught my attention “the Operative” in Josh Whedon’s
“Serenity”. His character of Dr. Vincent Kapoor in “The Martian” was no less
powerful. As Karl Mordo, who will go on to be dangerous adversary of Doctor
Strange, he cuts another sympathetic villain in the making like Helmut Zemo in
Captain America: Civil War or even Alfred Molina’s excellent portrayal of Otto
Octavius in Spider-Man 2.

I have to admit that I
disapproved of a Celtic Ancient One (as mentioned in the film). I have to say
that Tilda Swinton was fine. However, there’s a frailty to her especially when
she realizes that Strange and Mordo have understood the source of her power. So
I still disapprove. East is East and West is West. Maybe Ken Watanabe would
have been a better fit. But that’s done. Swinton though isn’t so bad.

Benedict Wong as Strange’s
eventual valet, Wong, has the makings of a good sidekick with toughness and a
pinch of humor. The Beyonce “cameo” was awesome. And the revelation that the
Eye of Agamotto is an Infinity Stone by Wong… that teases of what is to come
including the Infinity War that supposedly wraps up all three phases of the
MCU!

I can’t wait!

I read the Stan Lee and Steve
Ditko comics but never fully got into the character as a solo character until
Roger Stern began writing the second series in 1983 (with art by Marshall
Rogers and Terry Austin). I read “The Defenders” when writer Steve Gerber and
penciller Sal Buscema were working on the title but wasn’t really a fan of the
Master of the Mystic Arts until more recent times when Brian K Vaughn and Marcos
Martin worked on a story titled “The Oath” that was published in 2013. Then I
subsequently picked up the new series written by Aaron and Bachalo.

Doctor Strange is pretty good.
What stops this film from making the jump into the realm of greatness is a
certain lack of exposition in some scenes. It would have been nice to see a few
more scenes of Strange in Kamar-Taj learning the ways of the Ancient One from
studying the mystic arts to the more martial version. It would have also been
nice to see a little back story to Mads Mikkelsen’s Kaecilius. Even just a bit.

But that’s my one other quibble aside
from the Ancient One being Celtic.

I love the film because I really
couldn’t predict where it was going. It’s got strong characters with loads of
potential.

As Strange quipped in the film,
“I don’t believe in fairy tales about chakras or energy or the power of
belief”. Yet Scott Derrickson pulled it off.

In the year of the strange… after
Stranger Things, Doctor Strange is movie making magic.